Automaton Neutrino
by DJ-Necrophilia
Summary: The year is 7043, and Itex has destroyed everything. Whole continents have sunk into the sea, the sun is blocked out by acidic clouds, and the only animals left are radioactive and starving. Can Lissa earn the trust of a skittish desert rogue, and convince her to join in the crusade against Itex, and rebuild the Earth? Max/Lissa
1. Chapter 1

The year is 7043, and Itex has destroyed everything. Whole continents have sunk into the sea, the sun is blocked out by acidic clouds, and the only animals left are radioactive and starving. Max is a familyless lone wolf, fighting for survival on the outskirts of a civilization barely clinging onto life. When five kids step into her territory, she has to make the choice to save them, or let them be torn apart by purposeless Drones?  
Can Lisa convince her to join them in their crusade to destroy itex, and let the earth rebuild herself?

Chapter 1:

Her lungs were on fire, eyes watering in the storm of sand, the muscles in her legs straining to keep her moving forward. Her hair whips into her face, and she brushes it away with shaking, frightened fingers.

"Nudge, come here!" She screams over the wind, slowing down with an extended to take Nudges, hauling the girl up next to her. Behind them, the looming shape of Itex, a castle of shadow in the sand, alarms blaring beyond the chain link fence. To her right Gazzy carries a limping Iggy on his back and Fang is far ahead of them, knife in hand, beaconing them forward.

When Fang burst into her room, she'd wordlessly followed him out of the cube and down silent, blinding white hallways to find the others. It wasn't long until they heard the clicking and steel tapping of the Security Automatons, and the five kids that Fang had broken out got the hell out of there, Iggy crashing through a dead bolted door like a freight train. Lisa wondered if his shoulder hurt.

Nudge whimpers on the end of Lisas arm, and she tugs the girl closer. Nudge is frail, lacking muscle mass, and this running must be a new hell for her.

"Come here!" Lissa shouts, crouching to carry the smaller girl on piggyback, alarmed at how light she is. Squinting, she can hardly see the figure of Fang against the sand. She doesn't know where they're going, but she'd rather die following Fang through a sandstorm than in the white cube, solving and endless stream of mind numbing puzzles.

Nudge whimpers, her bony fingers digging into Lisa's shoulders. They slow down as soon as the sound of alarms is lost behind the wind, and the wind stills it's hurling of sand. The group of five gravitates together, the only sound their labored breathing missing together in the silence of the desert. Lisa would marvel at the beauty of the rolling hills of dimpled sand, but the heat and pain of just moving is ruining the sights.

"Fang." Gazzy asks, and Fang turns his head to the side in acknowledgement.

"Where are we going?" He asks, and Nudge leans and shifts her weight back, and Lisa lets her down to walk. Fang's jaw tenses and Lisa doesn't miss the tightness in his face.

"Dunno." He grumbles, and Lisa reaches out to lay her hand on his arm. He looks at her, alarmed, but doesn't move to brush her hand away.

"You did your best, you couldn't have saved all of them." She says softly, and his features soften, but only slightly. He moves away and her hand falls back to her side. He doesn't respond, just looks at her with a vaguely confused expression. They keep moving until the burning hot sun sinks into the sand in the distance. How many subjects had he wanted to break out before the security automatons caught on? She couldn't bring herself to ask.

"Why is it dark now?" Gazzy asks, and Nudge fills him in on how day and night work. Fang stops walking when it starts getting too dark, he dumps his backpack on the ground and begins passing around a flask of water. They all take sips, and Fang packs it away again. They all curl up in the sand, everything quiet until Iggy's breath grows choppy and he starts to shake, hands curled to his chest. Lisa crawls over to him, and holds his head in her lap, cooing softly, until he can move enough to wrap shaking arms around her waist. She rubs his scalp and feels sick to her stomach looking at the winding burn scars on his arms. She knows he's crippled with fear.

In the desert, the night's are cool and all of them lie down on the sand and sleep until the heat of the sun wakes them up again. Nudge explains to Gazzy why the sun is hot as they shake the sand out of their clothes, and Gazzy crouches to let Iggy climb back onto his back. Fang passes out the water and Lisa takes a swallow, the warm water tasting better than anything she's ever had before. They continue walking, Nudge holding her hand and Fang looking over his shoulder to see in they're being pursued.

"They couldn't have followed us through that sandstorm." Nudge reassures him, and he only nods in response and keeps walking.

"Look!" Fang bursts to life, one finger extended, and he leaps forward in long, excited steps.

"What is it?" Gazzy asks, running after Fang with Iggy still on his back. Lissa and Nudge hurry their pace, but in the distance, a shadow of a town emerges. Lisa lets out a squeal and bounds forward with them, dragging Nudge behind her. The group runs towards the silent buildings, but as they draw closer, the signs of decay become obvious. Whole buildings have been reduced to crumbling ruins, and the closer they get, the more frightening the place looks. The closer they get, the more looming it becomes. Buildings with calcified vines clings to brick and in cracks between granite buildings.

"Hello!" Gazzy calls out, and Fangs head snaps to the side. They're on the outskirts of the abandoned city, and to the side, what looks like the figure of a man.

"Hey! Do you live here!" Gazzy calls out again, and it turns to the noise of his voice, it's wheel skidding furiously in the sand. Lisa's stomach drops, that's no man, the arms too long, the shaking jerk of an arm.

"Gazzy, that's not a man." Nudge warns, and the Automaton pulls itself over the sand with it's scissored arm. Moving towards them.

"Run!" Fang pulls Nudge in the opposite direction, pulling her up onto his back in one fluid movement. Lisa looks over her shoulder to see if Gazzy and Iggy are still following, and the Automation lets out a string of clicks and shreiks the farther they move into the ruins of the city.

Over head, eyes watch them run, evaluating. Should she let them die?


	2. Chapter 2

Hello, I few, lovely readers! I wasn't sure I was going to keep this story up, but I think I will now, for representations sake, and for some diversity of pairings on this site.

also TRIGGER WARNIN for those of you who have a problem with gore, this chapter has that. Idk with my writing this might not be the story for you because every chapter's going to be like this. Sorry.

-Z

-

She watches them weave through the rubble, crouched with her toes balanced on the edge of the rough shingled roof. They made an endless amount of mistakes the moment they stepped onto the paved roads, drawing the attention of the slicer being the first. She'd always known that the service robots here would kill as soon as given the opportunity, and these strangers were practically giving themselves to the automatons that roamed the ruins.

She stands and takes off across the rooftop, following after them. She'll save them, and point them the way out of her home. The slicer makes a few low pitched sheiks, and Max can see the shadows come to life with Automatons responding to the signal that Max knew meant a kill was near.

One of the girls in their group lets out a bloodcurdling scream as a Collector automaton grips onto her leg, jolting her with electricity. Max leaps the gap between two buildings, swinging over the side of a building and sliding down a ladder with one hand, her hammer in her right fist, hitting the ground hard and taking off at a sprint. Down the street, they're headed towards a dead end, and she speeds up, seeing around twenty Collectors in pursuit of them. She skids around the corner, where they're trapped, and swings her hammer from the end of it's handle, smashing the plastic and glass of the nearest Collector, jerking away before it's self destructive pulse of electricity could stun her.

"The screens!" Max screams over the chirping and whirring of the Collectors, and she's pleased to see two of them spring into action while the other three huddles in the corner, the red-haired one blocking the other two behind her. Fang uses the butt of his knife to shatter the screens, and Gazzy punches and pulls wires, Max dancing around the Collectors, rendering them useless jumbles of plastic and wires. When only three more are shuffling around blindly, Lissa relaxes and moves forward a few steps, eyeing Max warily. Fang is nearest to Max, and they exchange a few words before the hooded and masked girl turns to leave.

Fang motions for them to follow him, and Gazzy trots over to pick up Iggy again, and Lissa heaves an exhausted Nudge onto her back. They leave silently, avoiding the few Automatons that are still rolling around on their wheels, letting out angry screeches. Nudge whimpers, and one of the robots turns in their direction, Lissa freezing in her tracks as it makes an impossibly fast beeline towards her. Nudge screams and they're shoved out of the way, the low round of a swings and the things is careening to the side, it's plastic shattered, the thing making a sad, blipping noise as it falls and it's lights go dark.

"Get up." Max gabs Lissa's arm and hauls her too her feet, dragging her back towards Fang, leaving Nudge behind.

"Hey!" Lissa protests, twisting her arm in Max's impossibly firm grasp. Nudge screams Lissa's name as she's pulled away, and Lissa struggles harder. Max turns, yanking her hood off her head with the hand holding the stave-like hammer and revealing her furious expression.

"She's going to die." Max growls, and Lissa just struggles against her harder, Nudge crying and toddling back over to Lissa. Lissa grabs onto Nudge with her free arm and holding the crying girl against her side.

"Fang, please!" Lissa look ahead to Fang, but both he and Gazzy are frozen in place. Lissa is still in terror, she escaped with them…Fang broke Nudge out! Is he really going to agree with this stranger to leave Nudge behind! Max looks down at her with great distaste and throws her away, Nudge stumbling and almost dragging Lissa down with her weight.

"When she dies, you're disposing of the body on your own." The older girl hisses, before turning and walking back up to the front, Fang returning to her side, the two of them exchanging quiet words. Gazzy trots to stay by Fang's side, and Max moves to crouch by Iggy's side, prodding the deep wounds in his thigh. Lissa grits her teeth and ups her pace.

Why would she insist on leaving Nudge behind, but check Iggy for wounds with a careful hand? She hefts Nudge higher on her back, the smaller girl winding her arms around Lissa's neck and crying against her hair.

"Hey, it's okay, I'm not going to leave you behind." Lissa coos, and Nudge's cries quiet after time and she just shakes. Max looks over her shoulder, and increases the pace, both the boys able to keep up, but Lissa falls farther behind. She grits her teeth and jogs to keep up, her arms and back aching with fatigue. Max is intentionally trying to leave her behind, but what she doesn't understand is why the redhead is so insistent on keeping the girl with her. The chances of someone that weak surviving here are so slim, she'd be dragging herself down trying to save her. She turns her attention back to Fang.

"How much water do you have?" She asks, him, and he pulls out the almost empty flask and hands it to her. She uncaps the top and drains it. She gives him a tight smile and hands it back.

"I have a well you can use to refill that." She says, and Fang nods. She's been unsure of the group, but her loneliness drew her to the strongest in the group. The dark one and boy carrying the other were strong and sure in their movements, she'd give a few resources for them to keep her company fro a while.

"What're your names." Max asks, and The boy walking seems to think hard.

"I'm Fang." The dark one says, and the smaller one grins up at her.

"I'm Gazzy, and this is Iggy!" He says brightly, and Iggy just turns his head to the side to look at her with guarded eyes. From what she can gather, Gazzy's been carrying Iggy for quite some time, but he doesn't seem fatigued at all, and she can see why, from the sinewy muscles in his arms and shoulders.

"I'm Max." She says, returning Gazzy's enthusiasm with an unsure smile.

"What about her." Max says looking over her shoulder at the redhead and the scrawny one. She can't help her lip from curling.

"Lissa." Fang tells her, and she nods. She assumes the name he gave was for the redhead, and she greatly approves of his thinking. Both Max and Fang are conditioned for survival, ready to sacrifice whoever slows them down. Nudge was just as dead to him as Max.

"Where do you live?" Gazzy asks, still smiling at her. In Gazzy's mind, Max is a new friend to add to all his other new friends.

"I'm taking you there." She says, and he bounces a little in his step. She opens the chainlink door to her warehouse and hold it open for the boys, but to Lissas surprise, she waits for the girls too, letting the door swing closed and fitting a bent metal bar in the opening, so it can't be opened from the outside. They climb flights of stairs through the empty building, their footsteps echoing off the concrete walls and columns. There's supplies stacked everywhere. Mattresses, blankets, first aid supplies, junk metal, wires, firewood, gasoline, tools, folded clothes and packets of rations that make Gazzy's stomach grumble. Max moves past it and pushes past a wooden door into a smaller, office-like room, dead screens lined one wall and the one opposite has a mattress pressed up against it with rust colored blankets bunched up in the corner. There's a sour smell, and Max kicks clothes and plastic ration wrappers away from the center of the room.

Max motions Gazzy to bring Iggy to the mattress, and she helps him lay down. Even in the intense heat, Iggy's shivering, and she draws a blanket over him, but leaves his leg exposed. Lissa leaves Nudge in the big room outside and goes in, crouching by Max and frowning at the blood that's seeping through Iggy's grey sweatpants.

"His wound is infected." Max says, and she motions towards Fang, who drops the handle of his knife in her hand. Lissa keeps herself from stopping Max's hand, only relaxing then Max onto cuts away Iggy's pant leg to get at the wound. Lissa gags at the sight of it, three deep gashes are oozing blood and puss, dark purple veins branching out from the irritated wounds. Max clicks her tongue in disapproval and sets her hand gently on his knee, shifting the wound outward, some of the puss seeping out of the wound and onto the filthy sheets.

"What can we do?" Lissa asks, focusing on the side of Max's face instead of Iggy's wound. Even up close, she can't tell if Max is male or female. Max's face is carved stubble-less, but their body is comparable to Fangs, with a flat chest and sinewy muscles. Max leans back on her haunches and glares out of the corner of her eye at Lissa.

"You can stop staring at me." Max says, and Lissa recoils, horrified to feel a furious blush color her cheeks. Max gives her a curious look and Fang crouches at her other side, a first aid kit under his arm. He and Max pry it open, and Lissa cringes when Max threads a clean needle with stitching thread and Fang pours antiseptic into the open wounds, the foul smelling liquid bubbling and hissing. Lissa flinches, but Iggy doesn't even tense up, he just stares up at the ceiling with calm, starry eyes.

"He should have passed out…" Max trails off, and Lissa fixes her eyes back on the side of Max's face when Fang wipes a new wave of puss away from the wounds with a clean toilette.

"I was a pain threshold subject. I don't feel most pain." He says, and Max shakes her head slowly.

"You're from the Itex building?" She asks, and Iggy moves his eyes to her face.

"Yeah. You know about it?" He asks, his tone taking on a new tone that Lissa hasn't heard yet.

"Everyone on the outskirts does. The workers there are monsters." She says, and Iggy wonders if she thinks they're really monsters, the way she says the word with such distaste.

"They don't know the half of it." Iggy says, and Max chuckles deep in her throat. Lissa fixes her gaze back on the side of her face again as Max wipes her hands on the towelette.

"I'm sure. I'd Imagine you've seen horrors I cannot imagine." She says, and Iggy's expression towards her changes. He feels a sudden draw of kinship towards her, both of them scarred and hostile. He leans his head back, feeling less anxious around her.

"Keep still." Max says, and she leans close to the wounds, motioning for Fang to pinch the largest one closed. With two fingers, he holds the four inch wide slit in Iggy's flesh closed, and Max makes quick, even stitches with an impressive speed. Behind the three of them, Gazzy gags and leaves the room to go talk to Nudge in the other room. Iggy makes a choked noise, and Lissa reached out to place her hand over the burning skin of his shin, stroking slow circles.

Fang hands Max a tiny pair of scissors and she ties the stitch and cuts the thread, threading her needle for the next gaping wound. Lissa is studying the side profile of Max's unfamiliar face, the dark shadow of her cheekbone the rough chunk of flesh missing from her ear, the spattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose, and the strands of blonde hair sticking to her forehead with sweat. Max is a great curiosity to Lissa.

"There." Max says, clipping away the last threads of stitching and leaning back, Fang immediately leaning in with antiseptic ointment, spreading it over the irritated lines of perfect stitches with his pinky. Max turns to glare at Lissa, and pushes the redheads face away with an open palm.

"Stop that." Max says, standing up and leaving the room, Lissa still staring after as her back retreats into the big room outside. Fang cleans up and Iggy stares at the ceiling, starry eyes still.

Lissa scrambles up after her, jogging to keep up with her as she crosses the room.

"Hey, can I help you?" Lissa asks, and they pass Gazzy and Nudge, who are looking out over the ruined city. Max looks over her shoulder at Lissa, her eyes narrowed into slits.

"No." She says, but Lissa just increases her pace to walk at her side.

"What's that hammer?" Lissa asks again, and Max sighs deeply and gives Lissa a withering look. Max doesn't know what to make of the redhead, she's made it clear she doesn't want her around, and she's sure the other girl knows it, but why does she keep following her?

"It's not a hammer, It's a drill-bit." She says, and Lissa looks thoughtful, reaching out to run her fingers down the cold steel. Max leans away from her with a startled expression.

"What's that?" Lissa asks, and Max stops and leans down to inspect a stack of mattresses. Lissa stands behind her, unflinching. She knows enough about human behavior to know that Max is an anomaly. She seems to be all on her own, and she shows disdain for everyone in their group but Fang, but she hasn't made a move to hurt any of them. Lissa thinks she wants a companion, so she won't dispose of any of them.

"Not now." Max says shortly, and Lissa takes a bold step closer to her, as if testing Max's tolerance. Max hears every step closer to her back, and her adrenaline spikes. She can see in her head the way the situation could play out. Lissa stabs her in the back, lets her bleed out while her resources are stolen. For all she knows, these kids hurt Iggy themselves and drew her out to find her stash to report to the damn sand bandits.

"There are blankets over there." Max says tightly, hoping that Lissa will chance her path, but she get's too close.

Then the redhead sets a hand on Max's shoulder and the taller girl turns, sweeps Lissa's feet feet out from under her, the redhead hitting the concrete floor with a yelp. Max's hand is around her throat, in her other her Hammer, her face twisted in fury with her lips curled away from her teeth, eyes on fire.

"Don't think you fool me for a second. The second you try to sneak out to your bandit leader, I'll smash your head in." Max threatens, but Lissa's face remains calm, and then blooms into a sad smile. Lissa's cool fingers wrap around Max's wrist, a delicate pressure. Max wants to recoil, and she raises her hammer like she intends to strike, increasing the pressure on Lissa's throat, the smaller girl gasping a breath.

"I would never." Lissa whispers, and Max growls and straightens up, releasing Lissa. Max feels like she's been singed. The way Lissa touched her was strange. Why would she do that? They don't even know each other, this is probably just an plot to get at her stash, it has too be. She slings her drill-bit over her shoulder and hauls the mattresses away, pausing only to hiss over her shoulder.

"Blankets are over there." Lissa sits up, rubbing the back of her head where she slammed into the ground. Her face is on fire, and she sinks her teeth into her lip. She stands on shaky feet and gathers several of the plastic-bagged blankets in her arms.

She's not going to forget the view of Max's brown eyes, pupils ringed with green, so close to her own.

Quick reminder to please review, and feel free to PM me if you have any questions, I always respond.

-Z


	3. Chapter 3

Hey! If anyone wants concept art for this, I have it, just gotta leave a review and I'll put it on the next chapter, for your clarification.

Z

Chapter 3

Fang stokes the fire in the office while Max gnaws at a strip of jerky.

"This is a nice place, fireplace in the office." He says, and Max shifts to lean against the wall.

"Stays warm at night." She says, offering him a warm smile, that he returns for a second, before turning back to poking at the fire. The desert might be blistering hot during the day, but at night, it was freezing. How many times has she barricaded herself in this room, gleefully listening to the angry hoots of looters, wondering where the resources of the ruined city had gone.

"Can." Fang says, and Max stabs a hole in the top of a can of pea soup and hands it to him, letting him nestle it between the flaming logs to heat up. Gazzy crouches by Fangs side and watches the fingers of orange fire consume the grey wood.

"Iggy's hungry." He says, meaning he's hungry. Lissa grabs him by the back of the collar and yanks him back, letting him bounce on the mattress with a giggle. Max has lines the room with mattresses, so they could all stay in one room, and to keep Iggy company. Gazzy had re-dressed Iggy in new clothes and changed the sour smelling sheets, the older boy now sitting up with his starry eyes fixed on the fire.

"Wait, they'll tell you when you can eat." Lissa teases, and Nudge shifts from where she's lying with her head on Lissas lap. They don't seem to be troubled at all, they re-filled their water bottles from Max's rainwater collection well and washed the sand out of their skin and clothes.

"Here." Max hands Gazzy a handful of jerky strips and he takes them with a grin, crawling across the mattresses to push half of them into Iggy's hands, a small smile gracing the older boys lips while Gazzy leans against the cool wall next too him.

"This place is great." Gazzy says, still giddy from the excitement of being around other people. His eyes trace over the figures of his companions, illuminated by the orange light of the fire. Iggy nods slowly, his eyelids drooping. He's tired, not hurting is too easy, but his teeth are still on edge. He feels like this time here is too easy, he wants to be doing something to give back. In Iggys eyes, Fang and Max are heroes, illuminated gods that he will never be able to repay.

"It's heaven here." Iggy says, and Gazzy snorts through his nose, looking up at Iggy with amused eyes.

"How can it be? You're hurt, this has to be the worst." Gazzy says, and Iggy just stares at him, not quite sure what to say. He doesn't feel the pain in his slashed leg. He didn't feel the pain when it was inflicted, and he didn't when Max stitched the skin back together.

"Hurt? This doesn't hurt." He says, and Gazzy's eyes narrow. He suddenly understands.

"You were a pain threshold subject, weren't you." Gazzy asks, and Iggy looks away. Gazzy used to share the dinning hall with the threshold subjects, until they were locked away in individual rooms, never to see the light of the sun. Gazzy saw the burns, cuts, broken bones and missing body parts. Iggy can't speak, he can only hold back the urge to vomit.

"What were you." Iggy chokes out, and Gazzy nudges his shoulder against Iggy's.

"I was a physical threshold subject, I got off easy." Gazzy says, and it's Iggy's turn to snort.

"Don't lie." He says, and Gazzy sighs. Everyone subject in Itex knew threshold subjects died early, and they knew why. While Iggy was subjected to constant pain, Gazzy was subjected to constant exercise. Aching Muscles, lungs on fire, exhaustion, being wheeled to his room every night, his legs jelly, eyes rolling into the back of his head, electric paddles against his chest, keeping his heart going after two thousand olympic swimming pool laps.

"Thresholds always die early." Gazzy whispers, and Iggy looks down at him with knowing eyes.

"Soup." Max is standing and walking slowly across the mattresses towards them with two bowls of the steaming green soup. They both take them and she sits crosslegged by Iggy's thigh, peeling back the blanket covering his leg and pulling the red first aid kit by Iggy's feet closer. Iggy doesn't even flinch as she peels back the poultice and wipes a clean rag over the cuts.

"Teach me to do that." Gazzy says, moving with his bowl to sit next to Max. She raises an eyebrow.

"What, how to take care of a wound?" She asks, skeptical, and he nods vigorously. He pushed his bowl into Max's hands.

"Are you sure?" She asks. She'd never admit it, but she's protective over Iggy. Maybe because he's wounded, maybe because she likes taking care of someone other than herself.

"It's okay. It doesn't hurt." Iggy says, and Max reluctantly moves to let Gazzy closer to the wound. She talks him through it, Gazzy's fingers ghosting over the wounds with salve, fixing the pungent smelling poultice and massaging the muscle around the knee to relax the site of the injury. Lissa watches them with bright eyes. She can see Max melting around Gazzy.

"Hey." Fang taps her shoulder and passes her two bowls, one for Nudge and one for her. Lissa feels and Intense sense of relief at the action. She though that the Max and Fang would just ignore Nudge, refuse to feed her and whatnot, but now Max proved to even not be that cold.

"Thanks." Lissa offers him a smile, but he's already turned around. The sun does down outside, and Iggy's the first to fall asleep, Gazzy maneuvering him to lie down with his wounded leg still facing out so it can drain. Nudge is the next to go, then Gazzy and Fang soon after. All of them under blankets with quiet breathing, peaceful faces masked in the shadows of their features. Lissa lies next to Nudge, pretending to be asleep, but she's watching Max's cast shadow against the wall. Max doesn't know how to sleep around other people anymore. She used too, once upon a time, but that was a long time ago.

"With a raspy gasp, Iggy startles away, and Max's shadow jumps. Iggy's doing his best to gather shallow breaths through his nose, but he can't keep his hands from shaking. Lissa stirs and steps over Gazzy and Nudge, crouching by Iggy and taking his head in her hands.

"You're safe here." She says softly, cradling his head, his wiry arms squeezing her waist, fingers shaking. Max watches, frowning, confusion hits her like a freight train every time Lissa displays her overwhelming apathy. Max watches as she strokes Iggy's hair, whispers to him behind her bright red curtain of clean, red hair.

"What's wrong with him." Max asks, and Lissa tucks her hair behind her ear, rubbing Iggy's back with her knuckles.

"Nothing, he has anxiety at night." Lissa says stiffly, with a tone that makes Max frown. Max doesn't know what that means, he looks sick, like the infection in his leg has gotten to his nerves and is making have seizures. Max doesn't know a cure for seizures.

Lissa humms softly to Iggy, and he slowly calm down, letting Lissa ease him back down into the mattress, his arms falling limply over his stomach.

"Why? Is that from infection?" She says, and Lissas head snaps up to look at her with wide eyes. Lissa snapped at her earlier because she thought Max was being rude, but she just didn't know.

"Have you never been around other people before?" Lissa asks, and she instantly regrets asking that. Max's face shuts down, and her jaw flexes as she grinds her teeth together.

"That's not an answer to my question." Max says, avoiding Lissas question entirely. She doesn't think about that person, her lost companion. She hasn't thought about him in so long, that Lissa even mentioning it is like a knife twisting in her gut. Lissa stands and makes her way back to her spot between Fang and Nudge.

"Oh, sorry. I took quizzes on mental illness. Iggy has anxiety, he get's so scared that he can't move, only at night, it seems to me." Lissa says, and Max stands and makes her way over to the last empty place, between Fang and the desk with the dead screens above it.

"That sounds fake." Max says, frowning. She wonders if mental illness is like a physical would that can be healed with stitches and a poultice.

"It's very real." Lissa says, lying down on her back with her thin blanket pulled up to her hips, and Max faces away from Fang. Max wonders how many of the people she's encountered had hurt minds, like Iggy. She realizes with a humbling clarity that she doesn't know as much as she though she did.

When Fang wakes up Max is gone. In her place is an empty meat can and a small rust stain where she kept her hammer beside her in her sleep. He sits up soundlessly, eyes scanning the sleeping forms of his companions, noting Iggy's changed bandages. He wonders if Max woke him up to change them. He creeps out of the room, soundlessly into the other room. Outside, it's blistering hot and bright, and he blinks to adjust, noting quietly the sound of shuffling footsteps above him. He crosses the room, finds a spiral staircase, and climbs it to the roof, where Max stands, hammer in hand.

"I'm running out of provisions." She says when he steps to join her. The end of her hood is blowing in the harsh wind, touching his arm. He gives her a sidelong look, only her right eye and the bridge of her nose visible over the folds of her hood and mask. He notes that she still says 'I' and not 'We'.

"I'll help you find them." He says, and her eye turns in its socket to look at him, and then narrows. She doesn't know why she feels like she can trust him. Maybe it's the way his hands aren't fists, but he doesn't look like any of the bandits she's seen. He and the others are too thin.

"I don't want you to go with them when I send them away." She says, and he sighs, looking out over the ruined city. He wants to stay here. Max is the only person he's met who's like him, in fact, he can hardly keep up with her, he wants to stay and flourish here.

"I took them away from Itex. I can't leave them to die out here." He tells her plainly, and it's her turn to sigh. She craves companionship, but she doesn't want to need it. Fang is the most logical of the group, Gazzy the second, and Iggy the third, even though he's wounded. The girls they brought along had may as well be dead.

"The girls are going to die." She says, and raises her hammer to plant the pointed end into the stones on the roof. Fang watches something move between the buildings, but it's too far away to see what it is.

"Give them the chance to prove themselves. I promise they will." He says, and Max turns her whole body to face him, yanking down the mask of her hood to reveal her confused grimace.

"If you break your promise?" She asks, and he smiles, realizing he's won as much as he ever will with her.

"I'll get rid of the bodies." He says, and she tilts her head to the side, lips pursed.

"Good enough." She says, moving back towards the stairwell and atomizing for him to follow.

"I'm glad you agree." He says, trailing after her, watching her tricep and back ripple with muscle as she moves that hammer like a stave.

"You'll need weapons. that knife won't work forever." She says, and he walks behind her down the stairwell. She pushed her hood back form her hair and wipes the sweat from her forehead.

"You have weapons?" He asks, wondering briefly why she would choose a rusty piece of metal over say…a machete or a spear.

"More than I need. Downstairs." She motions for him again and she leads him down to the stairwell they came up yesterday, but they go past the locked grate and underground. The deeper they go, down more flights of stairs than he can count, the air starts to smell moist, like decay. He doesn't like it, something about the place feels sinister.

"What is this place?" He asks, and she peers over her shoulder in the darkness to look at him.

"I was told this place was an place for workers to live. Human workers, before the machines. They built the underground when the built the factories, when the sun burned out all the plants." She says, her voice echoing off the walls. They're walking through an antechamber of a room, vaulted ceiling, concrete floor and walls, the only way he can see he is by faint glowing tubes of lights of the walls.

"What are the machines?" He asks, and she looks over her shoulder with a smirk. Her stave taps the floor with every step she takes. He wishes he'd brought his knife down here, especially as they pass by a jumble of smashed machine parts. The indents in the steel and plastic suggest that it was Max's hammer that did it.

"You're full of questions." She says, a twinge of amusement in her voice.

"They were workers. They were machines making machines until they were corrupted, and killed off the humans who thought they had control over them." She tells him, and turns into a separate, smaller room, instead of a door, there's a chain link gate that she pushes through, and inside the walls are lines with the same chainlink fencing, and the air smells like death.

"What is this." He breaths. It isn't a question, and she knows it. He pauses with his toes in front of a badly decomposed corpse while she keeps walking.

"They came a while ago. Chased me down here." She says simply, and only then does he note the pile of pulp for a head. His awareness of where she is at that moment spikes.

"Damn." He breathes, glad that none of the others can down here with them. The place is rank, but it's similar to one of the environments he was exposed to back at Itex. A warzone, they told him when they completed the dome. World War one, Complete with trenches and corpses. Fang chose not to ask questions back then, and he wasn't sure what World war one was.

"Stay there." Max calls to him across the room, and he looks up to see her half way up the chain link lining the wall her hammer still in her left hand. He hops over the corpse and weaves around dozens more to get closer to her. In the dim light, he can see what she's moving towards, and he feels bile rise in his throat. There's a man up there, stapled to the wall with knives, machetes, spears, swords, saws, sticking out of the corpse at all angles, his arms and legs spread like a star. Max climbs up beside him, and pulls a spear form his gut, dropping tendrils of his intestines dangling, blood and whatever else hitting the ground with a sickening splat. Fang chokes and Max snickers.

"Eww." She says with humor. She drops the spear the fifty feet to the ground, and keeps going, occasionally making a remark about how gross it is.

"Who was that?" Fang asks, keeping his face turned away from the scene. He's brutally reminded that Max is much better mentally conditioned for this sort of thing. She drops several more weapons, the flesh from the arm of the corpse drops and falls to the floor. Fang forces himself to swallow. She doesn't answer right away, but he knows she will when she's ready. When she starts to climb down she talks.

"He's the one who killed all the people. My brother and I put him up there." She says, and the tightness in his voice says he shouldn't talk anymore. he moves towards her and sifts through the weapons she dropped and picks four of them up by the time she's hit the ground, he hammer slung over her shoulder by a leather strap.

"Oh." They make their way back upstairs, and Fang is happy to be back in the heat and out of the dank underground. Half way up, Max stops by a price of heavy machinery in an adjacent room and tinkers around with it.

"You can drop those there." She says, climbing under the rectangle shaped machine and reaching up, tinkering with something.

"The best thing out here is something that doesn't need ammunition." She says, and he drops and moves towards her. She's making him feel like a child, moving without saying her purpose. She peers over her shoulder at him with a grin, and with a final yank, her arm moves free with a second drill bit like her own, without the fabric making up a thick handle.

She carries it to him, arm extended, and he reaches out to take it. he no longer feels like a child, he feel like he's being initiated into something that he's on the brink of understanding. When he takes it, the weight of it almost pulls him down.

"What the hell is this?" He asks, bewildered. The way she held it made him think that it would be much lighter, but it seems to be made of some kind of metal he'd never come across.

"A drill bit. You'll get used to the weight after a while. You don't have to use it, but I'd like to take it up anyway." She says, taking the hammer back from him and taking up two of the other weapons and motioning him to follow her again. He can't help but feel flattered. Is this the pull of friendship? He understands Max better than the others.

"Are we friends?" He asks, and she look over her shoulder at him, startled, but not angry. She seems to think for a second before she turns to leave again.

"I hope so." She can't contain a grin. The last person she could have called a friend was dead, and she would like no one else as a companion than someone strong like Fang.


End file.
